Wow, Bar Camp. So thoroughly successful and just finished up the numbers and we came out just about right.

I certainly know why I never wanted to become an accountant.

A quick breakdown of the expenses:

Food was by far the most expensive (sorta) at around $1150, breakfasts were cheapest as there were less people there and one breakfast isn’t included in that figure as it was supplied by the sponsor themselves. That also does not include one dinner as there was a special event that occupied one dinner time slot.

Drinks and beer are cheap, around $380. We really didn’t end up needing as many beer sponsors as we had, although the party at Gordon Biersch helped a bit with that, and somebody’s non-sponsored late night beer run ended up providing far more beer than we knew what to do with. We drank — and how! — but the end was nowhere in sight.

The Gordon Biersch party was actually more expensive than the entire rest of the camp combined, but would not have happened without generous donations from sponsors who covered the entire cost.

Altogether, I’d estimate (making up the couple missing meals) that for the average of 50 people we had for any given meal, the entire thing could have been put on, without the perks like t-shirts and the party at Gordon Biersch, for less than $1800. As it is we came out almost even and a few of us organizer-types are happy to eat the difference.

Now, to lay roses at the feet of our generous sponsors. We talked about them a bit at the camp, but I did promise to blog about them (yanking snippets from their site where applicable), so here you go.

Special thanks to these first few for covering the location (SocialText!) and the larger costs associated with the camp.

4 thoughts on “The Big Thank You Post”

In-kind sponsorships should help other groups around the world trying to promote similar events. If there was more time to plan the event I think there could have been a branded provider of breakfast (local bakery) as well as an official alcohol sponsor to offset some of the costs.